


Jewel Bright

by jenna_thorn



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fondness for snakes was not in fact a pre-requisite for Sorting into Slytherin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jewel Bright

The greeting on his arrival was effusive. "Welcome home, my old friend."

"Are we friends again, Lucius? My killing a doddering old fool does not make us so. And this is not my home."

 _A fondness for snakes was not in fact a pre-requisite for Sorting into Slytherin. He'd grown to like them, mind, over the years, but by a deliberate cultivation. He could hear the others, their voices rasping like scales over stone, in the other room. He shuddered. But his face showed nothing._

"Ah, but we are brothers, are we not? Brothers-in-Arms. Thus my home is yours." Lucius swept closer, lowering his voice to a whisper as he said "You have sheltered my son. Thus my home is yours."

"I could do no less."

 _An adder strikes on instinct, not on command. A snake will flee rather than fight. The machinations and circled plotting and sliding of plans over plans are the realm of humans, not of serpents. He longed to strike, but held his hand._

"I could not ask more. I could not ask so much, not even of you. Forgive me? For I will confess now that I doubted you."

Snape's eyes glittered, "And now I am forgiven?"

"No, my old friend. Now, I ask your forgiveness. For I did doubt and I know that I was wrong. For you have not forgotten what we once were to one another, what we once were to our Lord, what we are and what we shall be again." He raised his voice until the last words were nearly shouted, echoing across the hall, stilling the hiss of conversation from the other room.

Lucius swept away with deliberate display of his rings, the velvet of his robes, the silver snake, reminding all present of his status, of Snape's current favor. All was forgiven. All was forgotten.

 _The murder was not his betrayal. This was. He was a traitor and the word settled around him with the dry rustle of a skin thought shed._

With hooded eyes, Snape followed.


End file.
